Category Archives: Soccer

Soccer, Travel

Newcastle 2 – Burnley 0

After the Glasgow trip, I actually took to relaxing for a day. When I originally scheduled the trip, the Burnley game was on Wednesday, but by the time I arrived it had been moved to Tuesday to better accommodate TV broadcasting, which meant folks back home could’ve (and did) watch the game. It also meant that I could write this after the fact instead of burning the midnight oil.

Monday

My day off was mostly spent writing. I recently restarted writing book 4 after months of staring at an incomplete manuscript thinking “this is garbage, I should’ve plotted it out better before putting word to page”. There were three goals that day: get a full English breakfast, go to the distillery, write. I don’t have any pictures of the full English because I was getting the feeling the place I was at was not happy to have me (fancy-smancy), but I did get to the distillery where I managed to complete chapter 1 in a single sitting, which is impressive for me. It was about 40% new stuff, 60% reused, and of the reused there was a decent amount of editing that went into it.

I also grabbed a bottle of gin and some socks for use at DCFC and Harper’s matches:

I also wandered around for a while and checked out the scenery again:

And finally I got dinner at a place where you can find this lovely mural:

I covered the whole “Anarchist Burrito” saga on my twitter. Needless to say, the folks running the place had noooooo idea who the Zapatistas were. But the food was decent, so I might go back, though I am being pressured to go to Greggs as I write this.

Tuesday

Tuesday started with a little bit of writing and a lot of refusing to wake up. I met up with a friend of mine from the States who is studying down in Durham just south of town, and we explored a bit more, stopping at the Strawberry and candy shop not far from the stadium. Then we headed back into town and parted ways so that I could get ready for the game.

After taking a nap and chatting with Brigid a little, I headed back to the Strawberry once more for one final Newcastle pint (I promised myself I’d take a day off drinking on Wednesday) and to soak in the atmosphere one last time.

While I was there I ran into a group from the Toronto-area and we hit it off, then all of us got cozy with some locals who were meeting up with their friend from Burnley, which was a lot of fun. And then, finally, the time came to pack back into St. James’ and enjoy life in the sun.

Or at least a massive array of day-bright lights that fucked with my camera.

I don’t know if I was just better awake this time, but the stadium was much more alive. Burnley is a bit of a boogey team for Newcastle, so there was a feeling that it’d be a bit of a fight. And the game was chippy. Burnley played a hard press most of the game to keep Miggy from fully utilizing his speed. When he could, it was always breaks down the wing, that’d eventually lead to traffic in the middle.

The crowd was much more into it. Chants were loud and often. It was a bit more like the Celtic match, with hits being celebrated as the game got pretty chippy toward the end.

Newcastle scored twice on the far side of the pitch from me before halftime, and the just about came down. During the second half, Burnley seemed to be inching closer and closer to a goal, but luck and Martin Dubravka saved us more times than many of us were comfortable with.

Miggy did have a few runs toward our end, as did Perez and Rondon. Some got tantalizingly close, but bad luck or good pressure kept me from seeing a goal up close.

It was a big win for us, as it pushed up over Burnley on the table and well out of the relegation zone, though the fight isn’t quite over yet. Fulham and Huddersfield are pretty much guaranteed to go down as of writing but only seven points separate Southampton at 18th and Newcastle at 13th. On the flip side, only five points separate Newcastle and Everton at 9th.  So at least the bottom half of the EPL is competitive.

The game ended, some people hung around to watch the monitors in the concorse, but I went to the foot trucks to get another disgustingly amazing steak and onion sandwich, which left me soaked in gravy.

All in all, Newcastle has been a lovely, wonderful city full of some great people. I loved every second of it and will definitely use today (Wednesday) to do a bit more exploring before the next bit of this journey – heading into the Lake District to watch Kendal Town and hopefully give them that Kendall bump I seem to be bringing with me.

As I sit here in my hotel room groggy and hungry (and definitely, probably going to Greggs after this), it’s a good time to think about all of this and try to process it all. But I can’t. I start to and then fade into just how crazy and amazing it all has been. I was really here. I really did see those games. Meet those people. Walk to and from stadium more times then I can count. Hopefully it won’t be twelve years in the making for the next time I get here.

Until then, I’ll miss it.

Soccer, Travel

Celtic 4 – Motherwell 1

Mon the Hoops!

This is coming to you after the fact, because the trip to Glasgow was an all-day affair. So basically what happened was that between the Huddersfield game and the Burnley game I had a two day gap and didn’t just want to sit around for two whole days aimlessly wandering because that would lead me to “aimlessly” wander back to the Strawberry and then drink all day.

So instead I purposefully wandered to Glasgow (known locally, apparently, as “Glesga”) and purposefully wandered into a bar and drank all day until it was time to do something really fun – go to a Celtic FC match, something I had originally planned on doing, but thought might’ve been a bit hard to do.

The day started pretty bright and early with a trip to the train station.

And of course a journey through the beautiful English countryside.

Look at all that majesty, folks. But I’m only kidding. The fog eventually broke up and there were some absolutely beautiful sights. Some I got pictures of, some that were blurry messes. Here’s the town of Alnmouth.

But I found Berwick-upon-Tweed to be absolutely picturesque.

Along the way I had a cuppa and not much else as I watched the scenery go by. Once we crossed into what used to be the “Marches” of southern Scotland it really was like crossing into a new world. The little farms and the grazing sheep gave way almost immediately to rocky hills and towering trees. None of which you could photograph at 70mph, but they were amazing, and I really do wish I could share. Scotland and England are equally beautiful countries for very different reasons.

I made a train change in Edinburgh, a city which I saw, for all intents and purposes, none of. Then another ride to Glasgow on a train I was only 75% sure was going to Glasgow. Luckily it did go to Glasgow. One of the ticket-punchers was amused that I was planning on doing this whole thing as a “round trip”, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that five hours down and five hours back is normal for a soccer fan in the US, and that’s by car, which does make it bother harder in some ways and easier in others.

Eventually I arrived in Glasgow and smartly got off a station early (could’ve probably gotten off earlier than that) which put me closer to an area of the city called “The Barras” which is sort of like Detroit’s Eastern Market, only a bit rougher around the edges and also entirely full of people I can’t understand. It wasn’t a long walk, basically down High Street and then along Gallowgate, and I swear every city here has a street called “Gallowgate”, which I assume comes from the street where the gallows and gates were and fucking hell guys.

I found Glasgow to be a beautiful city in that way that old European cities are. Even when they’re rough and tumble, there’s a history and a story to them that sort of overwhelms the anxiety or apprehension of being far from home and instead forces you to think about how that bar is casually older than your country.

On my way to the barrows I ran into five lads from Kempten, Bavaria wearing the skull and bones of St. Pauli and with a shout of “Forza Sankt Pauli” I had five new friends and they had someone who had a better chance of understanding the local gist, though really what some of the Glaswegians were saying was a total mystery to all of us.

They (and I, actually) had been told to go to a place called “Bar ’67”, which was a great place to start any Celtic match, as it turned out to be as Celtic as a place could be without just being the stadium.

Edit: The Kempten lads were Michael, Helmi, Dino, K, and Schlossi. It was Dino’s 20th or 50th birthday, none of us could figure it out.

The walk to Celtic park from the Barras is about 30mins. I heard conflicting information. Some folks told me that the walk took us through Rangers territory, but some local folks told me that wasn’t true. What we did piece together was that might’ve been the case even five years ago, but things have quickly been changing, with more Celtic bars popping up around Celtic Park and more Rangers bars around Ibrox.

Regardless, it was a long walk that involved buying fries from a  Pizza Hut so two of us could use the bathrooms. But as you make your way eventually the word “Paradise” comes to mind, as the massive stadium rises over a green hill and between the apartments and malls.

And we saw that it was good.

The game was massive, made more so by just how loud and just how into it the entire crowd was. Every hit on Motherwell was celebrated. Every hit on us was booed. When Motherwell manged to claw one back off a scrappy happening in the box, the Celtic fans booed and hissed so loud and so long I honestly thought the ref was going to relent and scratch it from the books.

And when we scored… oh when Celtic scored…

It brings me to tears thinking about it now. It was hugs and high-fives and arms around shoulders as we all cheered and chanted. And to think Celtic weren’t even playing their ‘A’ squad, but to these guys it didn’t matter. Celtic were playing and Celtic is Celtic, whether first, second, or third line.

I was planning on meeting back up with the Kempten crew, but I realized too late that if I didn’t take the next train to Edinburgh, I wouldn’t be catching a train to Newcastle. So I popped back into that closer station, skipping the one I was supposed to use, and headed back. Only to find that the usual train to Newcastle had been changed out for a different one. Luckily I figured out which was which and spread the word to some other Celtic fans who were headed back along the same way as me. The platform manager kept trying to explain and finally I had to say “I don’t care where it’s going, so long as I end up in Newcastle.” The Celtic fans headed to Berwick had a laugh too, we were all tired and drunk and just wanted to know we’d be home.

Actually, when they got off, one recognized me through the window and gave a wave. Because so far, football has done nothing but make me friends wherever I go here.

And I think that’s pretty amazing.

Soccer, Travel

Newcastle 2 – Huddersfield 0

HOWAY!

I don’t know how but as I write this it’s 6:00pm Newcastle time, I’ve had more pints than I can count, and mostly of those were free… and I find the more pints I have the more of a Geordie accent I pick up.

Let’s start from the beginning.

9:50am Feb 21, 2019 I ditched work to make a delivery at Roush, By 10:15 I was on the road back home to shower, change, then relax before heading to the airport. Flight starts bumpy over Lake Eire and again rough as we head out over the Atlantic, but other than that it was pretty smooth and I think over the 7 hours I got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, non of it continuous.

As we approached London, there was no way of telling how high we were as the whole area was buried under fog:

This photo was taken at 1500~2000 feet:

If you look carefully, there are towers poking out of the “clouds”.

After landing in Heathrow I took the Tube 1.5 hours to King’s Cross, and then the train another 2.5 hours to Newcastle. Along the way my phone died, but not before I snapped this:

Which I grabbed at 9:30am, giving the poor girl working the trolley a laugh.

Eventually I made it to Newcastle proper, dropped my bags off at the hotel while they made up my room, and explored the city, including heading up to the stadium to grab my tickets from the box office. While I was up there I stopped at the Strawberry, the pub across the street from the stadium and the Irish Center (for some help with the Celtic game).

The next day (today as of writing) I had to recreate all that, starting with my base of operations until I head into the Lake District:

Snagged one of these from the Strawberry:

British bathroom light switches are on the outside and I forget every time:

View round the corner from my hotel:

The Chinese gate on the entrance to Chinatown and toward St. James’ Gate:

Some shots of the stadium:

Sir Bobby:

Alan Shearer:

And of course the Strawberry:

I got adopted by some locals and headed over to the Nine, the bar at the stadium proper:

And after a pint there I headed to my seat and holy hell was it a place and a half:

It was about this time that the realization of over a decade of being a Newcastle supporter was coming to life. I sort of broke down at the sight of it all.

It’s kinda of hard to describe, and I’ll probably talk about it more for game #2, but it was just a lot to take in all of a sudden.

Like seriously:

That red card:

Goal #2:

Do you think I’ll be able to make it back?

I did manage to grab some stadium grub:

Tomorrow I’m headed to “Glasga” to watch Celtic, and while I’m not certain I’ll be able to do a that-day update, I will certainly get something posted on Monday!

Cheers everyone.

Flags, Symbols, and Crests, Kits, Soccer

The Founders Cup – Eleven Warriors Assemble

Happy Holidays, everyone.

I hope everyone has been enjoying at least a few days off, or if you haven’t, that your days have been slow enough to be at least a little regenerative.

Been a pretty low-key vacation time for me. Writing has been put on a back-burner for a while as I recover my creative reserves and what better way to recover one’s creative reserves than other creative projects you’ve been knocking around in the noggin for a month or so?

Not long ago, Detroit City and ten other clubs announced the long-anticipated NPSL Founders Cup. These eleven clubs have elected to go pro for a bit of a pace lap before a fuller professional league kicks off in the 2020 season. The list of clubs included some no-duh clubs like Cosmos, Detroit City, and Chattanooga as well as some surprises like Albion SC, Torrent, and Miami United. I was actually surprised at some missing names, but they might be aiming more at 2020 than 2019.

So eleven teams total, split into East (6) and West (5) divisions. As far as I am aware right now they will only play within their group with no idea if there will be a EvW Champion match.

What better way to keep people going in these long dark days while we wait for some announcement than to make some unofficial home/away kits for all eleven teams?

None.

None ways.

So here we go folks, strap in!

NPSL Founders Cup – EAST

Chattanooga Football Club

For our friends in Tennessee, I went with a pretty standard home kit, focusing on the dark/light contrast in the blue of their crest. I know in the past they’ve had some interesting takes on these, but I wanted to come back to basics for at least a season. For their aways, I looked at some recent kits they’ve used and went with a contrasting white/yellow get-up with a full collar. The small touch of sky blue in the collar works well breaking up the top of the kit.

Detroit City Football Club

I know that I already did Detroit City recently, but I am always excited to give it another shot. I spoke a bit with the FO about next season’s kits, and I’ll keep it under wraps, mostly because you all know how much they love fucking with me.

Mr. Wright, if you’re reading. Here. Order these.

Anyway, for the homes I went a little out of the usual comfort zone for a plain rouge kit with darker accents, framed in gold. Generally DCFC home kits are pure rouge with two-tone touches. The away kit is white with some rouge touches to keep it from falling into an overly plain hell. The pinstriping is a nice touch, I think, and creates a look that is pretty unique in our history.

Miami Football Club

Miami FC are an interesting kit team because their home kit colors aren’t the same shades as their crest. It creates a unique look with a lot of possible variations. In the past they’ve used orange socks, but here I went with sky blue and orange stripes. The away kit, though, does take on the crest colors with only a tiny touch of the sky blue in the pipe cuffing of the sleeves.

Miami United Football Club

Miami United FC was one of those clubs that surprised me in the announcements, however I love working with their neon color scheme which is one of my favorites in soccer anywhere. I actually toned it down from their current rugby-styled tri-color hoops, which are chef kiss amazing. Here I tried out my new henley template and tried to keep them as far from the other Miami in look as I possibly could. Home went high-contrast, and the away took on a traditional European look that shouldn’t be unfamiliar if you read this year’s kit day post.

Milwaukee Torrent

Milwaukee Torrent was another name that surprised me when I read it. Having traveled there two seasons ago, I wasn’t impressed with the turnout. The bar literally across the street hadn’t even heard of them, so… ramp up the marketing. Torrent have a very interesting silver and blue color scheme, and in 2018 not only did they use a half-and-half top, but half-and-half pants as well! Here I went with another rare look in the US: asymetrical stripes, then for home and away I stuck with the pattern but swapped the colors around. Changing out the blue for the white (instead of just swapping white for black) gives enough contrast to prevent clashing.

New York Cosmos

The Cosmos (long may they be fucked), are certainly the most storied of the clubs in the Founders Cup. I believe they’ve actually already unveiled their kits, but I hadn’t actually been paying much attention. As far as I am aware, both Inaria and myself came to the same conclusion – there’s too much blue in the NPSL Founders Cup. Instead of the normal blue, I went with green for the home kits, based on a design I did quite a while ago for the “Green Mountain Boys” of Vermont plus a small navy detail so it wasn’t devoid of navy. The aways are tied to the home with the navy collar, but otherwise are a simple top/shorts+socks contrast game.

NPSL Founders Cup – WEST

Albion Soccer Club San Diego

I’ve actually interacted with Albion before on twitter, when I remarked that their grey-colored crest was very interesting, and tried to design some kits around that color scheme. Their twitter account reached out to tell me that they actually had a traditional look that they used and I checked it out. Despite the chance for an interesting silver kit, I stuck with what I’ve seen of theirs so far. The home kits are red and white hoops paired with blue, which for the away kits I went with a Rangers-esque look, broken up with some red and white on the chest.

 California Football Club

This was pretty hard, to be honest. Cal FC doesn’t have a crest, apparently. Or they really are going to go with the California flag with a soccer ball photoshopped onto it. I didn’t use that “crest” here. It was… well… it was a flag with a soccer ball shopped onto it. And the only thing I saw for them was a blue kit in their wikipedia page. So… I went with blue-white scheme, because there isn’t enough blue in the NPSL Founders Cup. For the aways I went with broken red hoops on white, with red socks as a nod back to the California flag.

California United Strikers Football Club

I have to admit that, like Miami United, California United’s neon-based color scheme rubs me in all the right ways. Not sure what everyone else thinks, but I love it. For the home kits I went white. White is a color that I often avoid when designing home kits, but I often use in away kits. I wanted to change that with a mostly white kit that relies on the cyan and black as flavor enhancers. The away kits, though, are certainly one that you’d expect from me. I didn’t want to copy the Miami United “color on black”, and instead went “black on color”.

Football Club Arizona

I’m really happy to hear that we have an Arizona team in the lineup as that might give a good reason to take Brigid out to her parent’s place and then for Ron and I to watch some soccer again. For their kits, I wanted to do two totally different co-equal “home” kits. First was FC Arizona’s more traditional-looking red and white kits, which is a favorite combo of mine. I wouldn’t want to take that away. Then, for the other kit, I wanted to go to the complete other end of the spectrum and do a busier kit in the modern sensibility. Gold-Red-Navy is a great combination, and given that Arizona’s flag is just that, why not translate it into a kit?

Oakland Roots Soccer Club

When the Oakland Roots first unveiled their crest on twitter it was met with equal parts of “What? No…” and “What? Yaaas.” I love it, personally. It isn’t a crest I would design or even want to design, but it’s like the DCFC crest of the Madison pink flamingo crest – it isn’t about working for everyone, it’s about working for the community around it. And that’s fantastic. I wanted to lean into that wild look for the home kit. I split the tree top and bottom and spread it out so the roots and their colors could rule over the chest and shoulders. Then the rest of the kit was nothing but color. For the away kits I wanted to focus on the roots themselves, in black, then combined that with touches of red.

So that wraps up all eleven teams in the NPSL Pro Founders Cup. There is a lot of great stuff to work with here, which is great. Rumor has it that the Nola Jesters will be joining too, adding a third neon-schemed team to the mix, so I am excited for that. Plus Cleveland SC and FC Buffalo rumored as well could mean the return of the Rust Belt Derby.

I’m excited for what the future offers here, there is a lot of “pros” to our punk-rock pro-league, but some cons as well. We face an uphill road, but I think Detroit City remains as level-headed as ever and we are in good company. This will be one of the most critical “fronts” in the Soccer Warz™, so regardless of where you are or who you root for, you’ll want to at least keep up-to-date on the Founders Cup in specific and the NPSL in general.

I hope you all enjoyed my designs and have a great rest of 2018. It’s been a tough year, but there’s a lot to look forward to in 2019.

Cheers, everyone!

Update 29th of December: Now with 100% less phallic imagery.

Flags, Symbols, and Crests, Soccer

Football from Scratch

In a “two birds, one stone” sort of situation, celebrating both my thirtieth birthday and HAFC’s 12-2 victory late on Tuesday night, I wanted to write a bit about the genesis of the club from the perspective of the guy who’s almost really only done marketing/branding/kit work (which shouldn’t really be shocking to any of you).

So what is Harper’s Athletic Football Club (usually just “Harper’s” or more rarely “HAFC”)?

Harper’s is a co-ed, beer-league indoor/outdoor football (soccer) team that is comprised of about equal parts DCFC fanatics and not, who started off life as Whiskey in the Jar in the DCFL outdoor summer league which plays at historic Fort Wayne south of downtown.

I joined on the urging of several friends as a way to get more soccer in my life, actually start playing sports competitively, and as a way of staying healthy.

Between the summer and fall seasons there was a longer-than-usual break as Detroit City prepared to open the Fieldhouse (and then later, the Clubhouse). This would move DCFL indoors to the renovated facility. At this point the captain of Whiskey decided to look into a few new potential sponsors and a rebranding.

The Crest and “Harper’s” AFC

Being a sort-of, almost sports branding person, I basically took this as a chance to have a ton of fun and learn a lot about running the image of a team. I set out chasing down one potential sponsor which will pop up a lot in the following images. But despite that, it was pretty quick how we moved from them once another sponsor popped up.

The decisions between sponsors is a story that doesn’t necessarily belong here, or really anywhere. Both are fantastic. Both owners were generous and forward. Both are worth your patronage.

Originally, and in the spirit of the bar league, we were going to take the name of the bar that sponsored us, but with the coming Fieldhouse (and the attached bar, the Clubhouse) we knew that there might be multiple sponsors in our future. At that point was the genesis of a club with an actual name and thus a real identity.

The first mock up was pretty basic, a bumper filled with red beer with the name of a bar over it, here Little Tony’s, which is a favorite hang out of Brigid and me.

This is a prototype image, because I had never bought the actual image IIRC. Or if I did, I didn’t use it later. It might’ve actually been free, now that I’m thinking about it.

Anyway, it was eventually upgraded to this:

Which is a much better-looking glass and I most certainly have the right license too!

The reason for a red beer instead of more traditional black or yellow ones actually has to do with the kits, but it starts here with Little Tony’s. This bar is in an offset building on Mack Avenue that is green and black:

(Taken from the Little Tony’s Facebook)

I knew I wanted to use green and black as two of the primary colors of the club, and if they were going to be the primary colors, it was likely that the crest would involve both. Now, I could’ve gone with a green crest and a black beer, but I already had a sort of idea in mind so what I needed was contrast. The cream contrasted the black, and so to contrast the green I went with red.

So I threw together a very Germanic or even Celtic-inspired crest with an art deco font I had laying around (and again – the license to). I needed a sort of “name” to fit in there and rather than using Lorem Ipsum, mostly jokingly threw on the name of the other avenue I live near – Harper.

For those of you know don’t know, I live between Mack and Harper avenues literally on the line of Grosse Pointe Woods and Harper Woods. Many of the bigger, better teams in the DCFL (which play in the much more competitive “Neighborhoods” league) use the names of local neighborhoods. Harper Woods is oft forgotten, so eh?

I fully expected the name to be questioned and changed pretty quick to another part of Detroit proper or even just to something a bit more generic. To my surprise it stuck, which maybe I shouldn’t’ve been because it does roll off the tongue pretty well and I love that it has a human quality to it without also being easily gendered.

Plus my phone puts “Harper’s Ferry” and “Harper’s AFC” next to each other so… you know… fight the power.

“Athletic Football Club” also came from a desire to be outside the norm. “Football Club” is much more common, especially here in the States. Really it’s a tiny tweak, but it has some good consequences. It differentiates us and it the abbreviation is much more aesthetically pleasing to me: HAFC vs HFC. HAFC is a sports team, HFC is a TV channel that plays in the background of the dentist’s office.

The Folks in Hoops

This is probably the part everyone is waiting for. Obviously one of the things that appealed the most to me was being able to design distinct, perhaps even iconic kits for HAFC and then getting to actually make them. The thought of working with suppliers and designers, at the time, was super exciting. And to an extent, it still is, but it is much more… mundane? Mundane.

The first thing I did was sit down and collect my thoughts and asked a vital question. What makes a kit iconic?

What makes a kit that after hundreds of years of iteration can be put next to the first one and you go “oh yeah, I see that”. And really, what I found, is that it is a combination of sticking to your colors, sticking to a simple design that offers room for experimentation without losing the focus.

So the next question was, what are some iconic kits?

Newcastle. Celtic. Manchester United. Chelsea. Inter Milan. Barcelona.

This list could go on forever. But basic colors. Basic designs. Focus. A plain shirt is a design. It’s an aesthetic as much as any other decision. Hoops vs stripes. What color are your shorts? Your socks? Those can be easy to forget when doing this. Shorts and socks provide either more room for your color of choice, like with Liverpool. Or can provide contrast, like Manchester City.

If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend Historical Kits. which is a lovely archive of hundreds if not thousands of kits spanning more than 100 years of football history in England and Scotland. It’s an easy way to see (and also get lost in) the design of football kits.

But if you’ve been on this site even just once or paid attention to that crest I posted, you probably know where this is going – we’re going to hoops.

The crest and the kit were being iterated at the same time, but the hoops were first on the kit and then migrated to the crest to solidify the relationship, it’s also a bit of a nod to my favorite English team – Newcastle United, who have their stripes on their crest. I did think about vertical stripes, but the hoops are so much… better? Better is the wrong word, but it works here.

One club in particular I had in mind when picking colors and designs was Plymouth Argyle, a team I know literally nothing about other than over the last few years they’ve had several kits I nearly bought just to have lying around. Their colors are also include a beautiful shade of green and black and boy have they had some amazing kits:

Plymouth Argyle's most recent home kits

(Image taken from PlymouthLive)

Their 2018/19 kit especially (far left above) is so gloriously fantastic that I might still buy one just to have. If only their season was going as well as those kits. They’d be in the PL before Christmas.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I hadn’t even picked colors yet. Whiskey in the Jar (the team, not the bar) wore sky blue kits.

The shorts and socks were a mish-mash as only tops were made and I actually never even had one as I wore a sky blue Adidas training top. Originally I considered keeping to the sky blue and potentially doing hoops or stripes with that. But since we were on the prowl for a new sponsor, the idea to grab new colors was too strong and the green/black color combo is a favorite of mine, one that I’ve used a number of times in mock ups and world building scenarios.

This is a kit I designed as part of a failed project mentioned several times in the blog. You can tell it was pretty early in my ‘career’ as it uses the 3/4ers “hero” pose and things don’t line up as neatly or make much sense. Like the logo on the side of the shorts. The first iteration of the Harper’s kits was basically this translated to the front view:

I wanted to emphasize green with the hoops, rather than black, so instead of starting and ending with black, I started and ended with green. The sleeves line up with the shirt only in opposite colors, which gives it a cool effect, I think. Then, stealing directly from Plymouth, I threw on that sexy, sexy white collar. You can see the first iteration logo here. I think it mostly works, but it doesn’t have the charm of the circular ones to come.

Still with the older logo (the second iteration of the logo was something that really only lasted a day or two before being replaced, so it didn’t really end up on any mockups), I had a sort of serendipitous moment when I colored the sleeves white and liked the look of it so much I took another step back to let it soak in. That’s when I came up with this crazy idea – what if the top of the kits were white?

I applied a pattern I had laying around from another project (or recreated it) and got that rounded effect on top.

Side note – if you’ve ever worked with me and wonder why I can finish shit so quickly, it’s because A) I’m very familiar with my tools (I’ve been using PS since I was like 14), B) I have a very extensive knowledge of kits because there are great people like Högs, Eric, Roger, and others who always give me great tips when stuff pops up and C) I’ve got a very large portfolio made almost entirely of random ideas that I can quickly grab pieces off of. And also, when you pay for “15 minutes of work” you’re actually paying for 15 minutes of my time and all of the above. This shouldn’t need to be explained, but there’s a trend of devaluing artists and designers… but not the work they produce? Which is weird.

Anyway.

So, I get the designs all together (there is a corresponding away kit that has not and will not be made and isn’t being discussed here) and I send them over to our captain for review.

The review portion can always be nerve-wracking, even in situations where I maintain a large amount of control like this. It often leads to sitting next to gmail and refreshing.

What came from the review was: no collar, different sponsor. Plus at the time we were made aware that the custom socks could not be made, so we had to choose from some pre-made ones, we chose black.

I have one final check that I often like to do when working on more traditional designs like the one above. I open up my sandbox on wikipedia and I try to recreate the kit using only the default patterns for the kit and see if it captures the spirit of the design. Not necessarily 99% of it, or even really 90%. But the closer, the better.

It worked fantastically.

So there it is. The Harper’s AFC kit in all it’s finished glory. I’ve actually learned a lot about everything working on these. Including how to get those hooped socks, which some of us now have! There is a few things I’d improve with the finished (i.e. worn product) but for the most part they are amazing and I’m please to have worked on them.

We’re already looking into next year’s kits and we have some sexy new away kits on the wings ready to drop in the next few weeks.

Cheers, everyone!

Detroit City FC, Flags, Symbols, and Crests, Kits, Soccer

The Kit Post – 2019

Cheers and salutations to the fifth annual Kit Post! Five years of talking my head off in these Sisyphean attempts to further my clout and reach as a kit designer so that one day I may be sipping martinis with Cristiano Ronaldo while one of my kits barely contains his physique.

For those new to my site, whether you hate-watch it or I freshly picked you up during the 2018 Detroit City FC season, welcome! Every year in August I make a post about Detroit City FC’s kits from that season and then make some “predictions” on what we can look forward to next season.

If you’re interested in the previous four, you can find them here:

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Over the last several years, I’ve learned a lot about designing kits and how they are made. I’m not far from making the jump from “hobbyist” to “freelancer” and have actually had a few (three or four) false starts on that front. But each time I learn a bit more and come back a bit stronger. I’m also on the cusp of figuring out a way to just design kits and sell them, which I might experiment with. Things like my fantasy kits are probably the best place to start. So if you’re a fan of the Union Macenburgh kits, perhaps you should watch this site or my twitter for details.

My designs, I think, are significantly stronger than they were even a few short years ago. Partially because I’ve started using professional templates, but also because I’ve become better at translating the vision to the page. Still not great at logos. Not sure what I can do for that but keep working on it.

So let’s start with the 2018 Detroit City kits. I have some mixed opinions here and I actually managed to get a few things right:

  • Away kits used white socks with red flip-overs
  • We dropped Detroit Metro Chevy Dealers
  • I predicted the chevron for the home, we used them on the charity kits

Some things that I was completely wrong on:

  • I predicted we’d use the darker, purple-y maroon again for the home colors, we returned to just dark red
  • The away kits returned to white
  • I have *always* predicted a black charity kit, once again that proved not to be true (more on that in a bit)
  • We still didn’t pick up Stroh’s as the primary, but we did pick up Lyft; so welcome to the team Lyft
  • The Metro Chevy Dealers deal did not have multiple years left on it

Okay, but I got some hits! That’s better than nothing.

Last seasons kits can be ranked as thus: Away just barely hedges out Home, then a massive gulf in quality, the charity kits. If we were talking purely the tops it be a much closer race but… let’s just start there.

The charity kits, when first unveiled were already divisive. There’s the undercurrent of anti-blue in the DCFC fandom that is not surprising.  Our biggest rivals all wear blue (Lansing, A2, GR, the Cavs… apparently), so for us to don it as well is not going to be well received. There’s some evidence that the FO is just trolling, but whatever. I liked the sky blue tops, I liked that they still incorporated touches of gold and the rouge chevrons. The problem was everything else. When they were unveiled, they were unveiled with the white shorts and socks. That looked good. Later in the season, I noticed that the white socks that had been worn at the unveiling were not the white socks we were using that season, so I put a vote up. People supported using the away socks or perhaps sky blue socks. What we got was so much worse: the home socks and the home shorts… for some reason. It looked like utter garbage, a very rare miss for our kits.

The home kits, on the other hand, were great. I really liked the subtle nod to Dave Edwardson’s hometown for what turned out to be his final season (apparently, as of writing). The vertical stripes of Newcastle looked good in the two-tone rouge. I prefer the hoops, if I’m honest, but I also like breaking up plain-looking kits. I’m thinking that next year we’ll return to a more plain look. I really hope we avoid the mess of patterns offered by Adidas for the upcoming season. Some are descent… but others are just… bad. Like snow flakes? Really? For fuck’s sake Adidas.

Finally, the away kits, which were absolutely stunning. Loved them. Didn’t grab one because I’m a clutz and I don’t want to ruin a $90 kit. The touches of rouge in the collar and on the cuffs was sublime. That’s how you do an all white kit… by not taking “all white” literally. A few teams in our league, including DCFC a few seasons ago have worn what are essentially bargin-bin white kits from Dick’s that have had the logos and sponsors ironed on. That’s good for a team that pulls fewer fans out per game than it concedes goals, but for DCFC you gotta be cutting edge. This year’s away kits? Italian chef finger kiss Divine.

Before we continue, I have a few disclaimers for readers:

  • I don’t work for the DCFC front office
  • The DCFC front office fucks with me
  • Kits shown here are not official direction
  • Logos, league, and sponsors are used without permission
  • Sponsors and league are not official or necessarily endorsed by our front office
  • The reality of 2019 might be very different than what I predict here

So we’re nearly a thousand words in by this point so you’re probably going, “Nick, just show us your fucking kits,” which I think is a rational response, so we’ll get the show on the road.

Last year I wanted to focus on the possible, that is to say I studied some of Adidas’ available templates and based my designs off those. This year I’m not sticking to that so much. I want kits that are both possible, but also are a bit more involved. So with the next three designs I have one that fits the “fully sublimated” design, the “easily available template” design, and another that falls in between. I liked mixing it up and I liked getting to do some more complicated things.

I have a feeling one or more of these designs might be a tad controversial, but we’ll see.

One last point to address before I get started is that I actually reached out for feedback and ideas and really I only got three: pink/black combo, “verdigris”, and for the sashes from the 2014 season to return. I’m only going to address one of those points here: pink/black. I just designed a pink/black kit for a client and so I was not necessarily keen on doing it again. I love the pink/black combination and I’ll certainly revisit it in the future, but the timing was off for me so it’ll wait. However, I do hope everyone enjoys the one I did make when it comes out in a couple months.

The Home Kit – Soul of Detroit

My 2019 Detroit City FC home kits feature the Detroit city flag sublimated onto the front in the two-tone rouge that has become a mainstay for our home kits in the last few years. For an added touch, I alternated the colors of the sleeves as well to give the traditional feel of a quartered kit, a pretty common design in Europe but very rare on this side of the Atlantic, especially in the US.

I have a love-hate relationship with sublimation. I feel that it’s often misused to create these vastly complicated designs instead of bringing a fresh take on older designs (like using the quarters to create the Detroit flag). Gold trim on the collar, shorts, sleeves, and socks bring the overall look together – an otherwise disjointed design framed and united. Not unlike the city itself.

With the constant war in US soccer on an increasing number of “fronts”, including Detroit and now Chattanooga, I wanted to make it perfectly clear what team is Detroit’s team.

The Away Kit – Heart of Detroit

The idea of bringing back the sash from the infamous “kitless” season of 2014 (which also gave us the hoops for the first time) has crossed my mind, but having it specifically called out when I requested input made it too much to avoid.

The sash itself is two-tone rouge, like the home kit, to give it a bit of dimension, and then “trimmed” in gold. The gold trim on the sleeves and shorts remains from the home kits, but the collar switches to rouge, not unlike the 2018 kits, and I kept the red flipover with white stripes for the socks.

A repeat of the 2014 and 2017 seasons would be fantastic, picking up this under-rated beauty would be a great place to start. That and picking up a certain WMB.

The Charity Kit – Spirit of Detroit

So the suggestion of “verdigris” was a fascinating one, certainly got my gears turning for possibilities. For the unaware, verdigris is the color of weathered copper… featured prominently on old statues like the Statue of Liberty and our own Spirit of Detroit, which has been featured on every single Detroit City FC kit from the very beginning.

I knew right away I wanted to go into one of those “traditional” kit designs that are not common in the United States. Originally I started with the quarters, but I quickly shelved this. It just didn’t click in my head, so I switched the the halved design thinking that I could add some smaller details in it to give it some life. Sublimation ideas crossed my mind, including the statue proper, but like I said the statue is on every kit and I didn’t want it to look like it was a larger crest sublimated over the entirety of the kit. I also considered some golden pin stripes, but again getting too complicated.

What I chose is what’s here: the gold collar and trim on the shorts, sleeves, and socks as well as the verdigris and white alternate logo. Sleeves alternate color like the home kit (or really the home kit picked it up from here as this was the first kit I worked on) with the YMCA as the charity sponsor. Between the two halves I applied a bit of a staggering design to give it a bit of needed life without over-complicating the entire design.

This is absolutely, hands down, my favorite of the three. The choice of verdigris as a color was amazing, it works brilliantly with the gold and white and is definitely being added to my dossier of color combinations for later. If I had to pick one kit, just one kit for DCFC to actually make real, no competition: it’s this one.

So that’s that! Kit Post 2019 has come and gone and we’re still under 2000 words!

I hope everyone enjoyed the little discussion today and I really hope everyone loves the designs. As always, keep your eyes on my twitter where I often post snippets of, or even full designs for kits and in the coming weeks definitely stay tuned for some big unveilings that I have planned.

And what do you guys want to see? What did you like, what didn’t you like from the 2018 Detroit City kits? Let me know!

Cheers, everyone!

Detroit City FC, Soccer, Worldbuilding

Mythology

Eight thousand (ish) years ago, my ancestors sat on the banks of the Black Sea in a region that is now Ukraine and looked out over the waves, probably telling stories. By all accounts they had a language, but what it was is unknown, and they had religion, which we do know a bit about. The stories they told around the fire or in holy places were probably not all that different from the ones we tell now. They’d speak of divine intervention, the power and might of warriors, the calm and love of healers.

Today, we speak of the same things with the same reverence. We build the same mythologies, these stories that might have no importance to someone outside of the tribe, or might be thought of in the opposite like, a tale of woe a tale of glory; a tale of victory a tale of defeat. But the sharing of these stories, the telling of having been there, of having felt the emotion first hand, will only last so long. These beloved memories will slip fully into myth.

But they also slip into myth today, in real-time, whenever they are recounted to someone who had not been there. Or every time we add a little detail, subtract a little detail, or embellish something a wee bit. When we let emotion get the best of us and blind us from an objective retelling, because an honest retelling not need be constrained by reality.

I’ve been thinking about these modern myths recently because a coworker asked about my desktop backgrounds, modern cave paintings depicting warriors in celebration or battle. Warriors wearing rouge and gold and those who see them off to battle sounding horns and manipulating the battlefield with smoke and fire. He asked what they meant and so I told him in a rather round-about way. I didn’t tell him the objective truths behind the images; I told him the myths, as real to me now as they were when I witnessed them with my own eyes, my own ears.

I told him of the great warrior WMB, swift as the wind, as nimble as a bird, who with strength and resolve dashed our foes, the vile Lansing, breaking them forever, never to rise from field again.

I spoke of the Dragon, who with rippling abs too numerous to count, dug in and rescued our forces from defeat in such a glorious way that the songs of our people summoned forces far greater to extinguish our fires.

I regaled him with the story of the beast Louro and his one-man-stand against a great stag, and beating his chest when he left that monster bloodied and dead in its own meadow. And of when he raised that golden belt above his head, surrounded by a grateful tribe who had traveled seeking revenge.

And the mousy knight, with his right foot of destiny, when things looked tight and bleak, and that our wall of brick would be called upon to save the day, did lay low that monster from the suburbs in the ninety-third minute.

But not just warriors, I also told tales of great journeys to far off lands. Of invading Cleveland (a story that I told second-hand), of bus trips to sleepy towns in Wisconsin, or converging on a field of corn in the midst of a thunderstorm.

Of friends from far overseas who came in celebration, of culture shared, history shared, of pride shared.

I told him of foes.

Of dances that could’ve lasted forever.

I spoke of friendships that were forged with one who should’ve been our enemy, but when we saw him on the field, leg shattered, we rallied around him, brought him care and comfort. Sent him home more one of us then one of them.

There were great community gatherings, of celebration, of care, of community coming together to fix a chariot, or to heal one of our cherished sisters.

And too, I told him of that darkest moment, when things looked grim, and the vile enemy did have the advantage three to nil, with one of our warriors out of the fight. And how our songs never ceased. How our voices lifted and united. And slow and steady our warriors fought back, and before the day was over, found ourselves evenly matched. And the great warrior Seb did celebrate as a windmill, standing strong over a field of rouge and gold tulips.

He listened with eyes wide, he understood what it meant, that these were no ordinary tales of gallantry, these were myths, enshrined forever by the tribe. They would only grow brighter with time, a little fuzzier sure, but no less true, no less glorious.

In the nascent days of a kingdom, these myths bind us together, and they tell of who we are, what we stand for.

Detroit City FC, Flags, Symbols, and Crests, Kits, Soccer

The Kit Post – 2018

Welcome to the fourth annual Kit Nerd Day!

That’s right, I’ve done three of these already, and so far I’ve successfully predicted literally zero of the kits. Of course, that isn’t necessarily the point. The point is for me to have fun and for you guys to get a gander of all the crazy ideas constantly going through my head.

For those new to the site: every year around the end of August I do a post with some ideas and thoughts about next season’s kits. So just to repeat, these are ideas for the 2018 season.

And, like always, let’s start with some disclaimers. First, I am not a professional. I don’t work for Detroit City FC or any of the major kit design companies. I’ve used all images without permission. Nothing I post represents an official direction of the front office or any one tangentially involved. Remember – the FO actively works to fuck with me and they’ve even told me.

Any potential sponsors/leagues, these are not endorsed by the FO, the NGS, or anyone else. I make them for fun.

So the first thing is thoughts on last year’s kits.

Fuck. Yeah.

I mean, that was a crazy season. Beat two professional European teams. A new record-sized crowd was there. We won the Midwest. We attracted attention from all over the world through our friends at Copa90US. Keyworth’s stands are nearly completely opened. The “Wolfpack” started as a meme and ended up as a rallying cry. I got to meet Peter Wilt, who’s setting up NISA, in the stands at the Key. So that was pretty awesome from just a soccer-nerd standpoint.

Oh.

And Lansing blew a 3-0 lead.

As for the kits: the hoops returned! We did actually get throwback kits (to the ’67 Cougars). We even made the long-desired, long-awaited switch to Adidas! That’s fucking awesome. These kits were way better quality than the Nike’s. Way better. They did come at a higher price tag for us, but damned were they fucking gorgeous.

Across the board they were fantastic. From the hooped rouge on rouge on rouge kits to the golden away days kits (which saw quite a bit of use at home) to the fantasticly simple charity kits to those drop-dead gorgeous Cougar throw-backs. There are three 2017 kits in the Kendall-Collins household. I feel that is too few, but it is what it is.

Adidas pretty much owns US soccer, namely through their agreement with MLS, which IIRC was just renewed. Nothing of their really struck me this year. Portland’s home kits are more reminiscent of their third kits from previous years, which is nice.

Atlanta’s kits are pretty good. I’m a fan of the black/red combo and the grey and red makes for an interesting away. Columbus got their yellows back. That’s good. New England has an interesting 50/50 kit, rare on this side of the pond.

I noticed a few “default” designs either leaked into MLS or out. Atlanta’s home kit. NE’s home. Columbus’s away. Houston’s away. Plus any solid color kits. Not a good or bad, just something I found interesting.

Okay, some thoughts about DCFC kits in general before I move forward with unveiling my designs.

According to Crain’s the deal with Adidas is a multi-year agreement. That means I can pretty easily open up the Adidas miTeam app and fiddle around. But instead of using their kit builder, I’ve chosen to instead create some designs based on what’s available in the kit creator. So these designs should be entirely possible for Detroit City to don for 2018.

Moreover I’ve learned about when they actually put in the orders, so… I know that I’m ahead of the curve here. Fingers crossed. Is this the year we get the Nick Kendall kits?!

We’ll see.

One last note:

Sponsor – Stroh’s

After the loss of Flagstar as a sponsor, I’ve had to switch it up. I’ve more or less fallen into the rut of using Stroh’s because damn it looks great on our kits. Now, I don’t actually think this will be a thing because I think the deal with Metro Chevy Dealers also has multiple years left on it, but I’ll be damned if I stick a bowtie on my designs.

The Home Kit – Wolf’s Bite

Starting from the top, my prediction for the 2018 home kit. Based off Adidas’ chevron design – the chest is broken up by a bloodied dagger like a wolf’s blooded maw. Put five or six of them together and you’ve got yourself a fearsome beast.

I’ve stuck with the darker shade of rouge for the main body, adding just the barest hint of a lighter shade for the accents on the side and on the edges. And at the very bottom, just above the hem, is the flag of Detroit.

The Away Kit – Upwards

Next up is the away kits, I want to continue the gold and white kits. I was extremely happy to see them make a return after too many seasons away. We’re the blood and treasure, rouge and gold allez allez, so let’s keep it going. Whether we end up in NISA, NASL, or remain in the NPSL it’s all coming up City.

This design is based on the same design that they use for the New England Revolution’s home kit and has since become a default design, only here the stripes go the whole way through. The rouge accents are far more visible on the gold and white, but remain consistent with the home kit.

The Charity Kit – Soccer’s Heel

Not everyone gets to be a good guy, someone has to play heel so some self-righteous prick can play face and tell himself that no matter his own faults, at least he doesn’t light off smoke, swear, and have too much fun in the stands.

Harking back to arguably one of the greatest teams of all time and certainly back to the single most beautiful Adidas kit ever the charity kits are a combination of black and rouge that begs, begs to be unleashed on the pitch.

Let the soccer moms tremble, everyone’s favorite team to hate is here.

There it is everyone, Kit Nerd Day 2018! What did you like? What do you hate? What do you want to see the Boys in Rouge don this year? Let me know either in the comments or on twitter.

I’ll keep posting extras on twitter as I usually do.

And as always; Lansing blew a 3-0 lead.

Cheers everyone!

Detroit City FC, Opinion, Soccer

Kleinstaaterei – NISA Joins the Mess

2 Comments

As is often the case German has the perfect word for any situation. Kleinstaaterei literally “small state -ery” is a great description of three things: Germany before Bismarck, the Balkans after 1992, and American soccer in 2017.

Today, as unveiled by Midfield ϕress, the giant goatsee-esque gaping hole in the American soccer “pyramid” might finally come to a close. For those not keeping up (and why would you?) the pyramid is currently very not pyramid-like as we currently have the MLS on top, both the NASL and the USL in tier two, noöne in tier three (because that fucking makes sense), and then PDL and NPSL in tier four.

(Detroit City is in that tier four clusterfuck.)

What is bringing this to a close? In an interview between Chris Kivlehan and Peter Wilt apparently it is NISA: the National Independent Soccer Association the USL to the NASL’s MLS.

Now, a large portion of the hype driving this, that pro/rel has finally reached America is cut down quick; Wilt is pretty straight-forward and honest that there is no agreement between NASL and NISA. He says (emphasis mine):

I presented the concept of the third division league to both the NASL and NPSL.  Both thought it was a great idea, and was needed.  The idea was a link league that would eventually lead to promotion and relegation.  Everyone agreed it was a great idea, but  the devil was in the details.

Over the next several months the focus became who would organize it and lead it, NASL or NPSL.  At the end of the day both said they needed to focus on their own leagues…

This bit of honesty, when showmanship could’ve reigned, is one of the reasons I tend to let Mr. Wilt speak. It’d be easy to promise the sun and stars and deliver New Jersey, but expectations must be reasonable.

So what are those promises? Well, Peter continues by outlining four “pillars” of the league:

I. An affordable pro division national soccer league with regional based competition

II. An independent league with team owners controlling their markets and intellectual property

III. Our intention to incorporate promotion and relegation once the league is fully populated with 24 teams

IV. Have a strong league office with quality staff supplemented by expert consultants

I’m going to break this down from my perspective. One and two say “we’re going to mix the NASL with the NPSL” – regional with low travel costs and independent teams, no franchises here.

The first problem I see, though, is immediately followed by number three: twenty-four teams? But that’s a fourth what the NPSL boasts and about the same as the MLS. It’s also twice the current NASL roster of teams.

How is one supposed to be regional when there are so few teams? Or is the plan to have two divisions? “No” says Wilt. One. One division of eight to ten teams in 2018.

Ooookay.

However, Wilt continues, this will break into two conferences as the goal of twenty-four teams is reached.

I’m ignoring that other part for now.

Lastly, that fourth pillar is just saying to investors “we learned from the NASL blowup at the end of last season and we’re going to move forward smarter”.

Whether or not that is true has yet to be seen, but acknowledging that you have a problem is always the first step to fixing it.

Next few sections are business talk I’m not smart enough to understand.

Flip flip flip.

Wilt brings up an interesting point, which I will use to jump off to that discussion a bit earlier than planned (emphasis mine):

There is the potential that NISA could fully populate at 24 teams before NASL can populate to its goal of 20 teams.  So NISA can work as an incubator of sorts for the NASL, at first, before promotion and relegation.  A team could play for 2 or 3 years in NISA, then join NASL via expansion.  This would allow those teams to get their feet under them from a business standpoint.  They can build their fan base and revenue model while operating at a lower budget.

Well isn’t that a whole lot of common sense, but it still (wisely) skirts around the whole pro/rel issue – which I guess is the point.

I’d like to think that every team in NISA will have the ambition to either buy their way up or earn their way up through a promotion and relegation meritocracy.  Our ambition is to grow the sport.  We want to promote teams to the higher division, and eventually do that in a merit-based way in an open system, which is obviously another contrast to USL.

So the plan seems to be a sort of hybrid system, which makes sense in a round-about way. NISA will probably still be operating without paid players, hoping to maintain the ability to tap into the NCAA’s player base.

Or maybe they’re not.

A longer season might make this harder. Ten teams means eighteen home/away games. Currently DCFC plays fourteen with a pretty packed schedule that relies on favorable geography.

Will the longer season mean fewer NCAA players? Probably. In the past DCFC had issues keeping players from certain schools on board all season because they’d get called back early.

And college players travel notoriously poorly – primarily because they don’t travel so they can work a part-time job. Low-tier soccer in the US doesn’t pay. And without TV deals it probably never will improve too much. That’s what makes MLS squads so much stronger than even NASL or USL squads – there’s a huge cliff between them, a cliff bridged with money from sponsors who want national exposure on TV, not just some YouTuber’s stream.

In the end I think that will be the largest hurdle between NPSL and NISA, but not as big as a hurdle between NISA and NASL. You can’t really be semi-pro, because the NCAA basically dictates that you either pay everyone (and get no NCAA players) or pay no one (and get no professionals).

Now there is some grey room – but it is limited to those willing to essentially work two jobs to play soccer.

I’m going to move this entirely into the realm of my personal thoughts, because the interview, while well-written, starts to get into business stuff pretty quick and I want to just think aloud rather than regurgitate.

I am not convinced by this. I’m just not. If Detroit moves into this league, and given hints from Sarge on twitter, it seems likely, I am worried. I am worried about my club being dragged down by the weight of another ASL. Remember ASL? No? Well they were a thing and they were essentially dead on arrival.

On the flip side I trust Peter Wilt more than most people.

On the flip flip side, USL is also getting ready to launch its own tier three division. There are pros and cons – USL has the “B” squads and affiliate squads that can help bolster their second division in the rough early waters; however that can also stagnate interest in the league from outsiders. It also means that the USL will be running two leagues while the NASL and NISA operate independently, meaning each can focus on their own interests while only paying respect to the other.

Whether they are “relegated” is not my concern. Boot them before they drag the league under.

That sort of decentralization might be healthy and give NISA a good advantage.

I also think that NISA and Peter will attract some interesting teams that will help the league in those early water days with good, strong attendances.

Another issue, though, is that I can’t think of that many teams to make this worth-while. NISA needs to be willing to cut the chaff and not give fledgling teams enough time to sink the entire league. If a team is floundering they need to be kicked out, period. Whether they are “relegated” is not my concern. Boot them before they drag the league under.

This also means that this war between the independent leagues and the franchise leagues has no end. And the hill that seems to be the one NISA/NASL/Peter are willing to die on is this idea of pro/rel. I think, in the end, pro/rel is a marketing ploy – a tag line for the articles to employ to get more clicks. Whether in five years or ten, whether between two leagues or three, I don’t give a fuck about pro/rel as a hill to die on.

Would it be fantastic to have? Yes.

Is it worth losing DCFC for? No.

When is the league healthy enough for pro/rel? When all the sides are pro.

When will that happen? If the NPSL is involved? Never. Without the NPSL? By 2030.

In the end I don’t think pro/rel is here, I think there are ten teams taking a massive risk and I really, really hope it works out for their sake.

And where does this leave DCFC?

I still don’t think MLS will really come.

As always, we are linked to every expansion announcement since 2013 so let’s think this out.

Currently there is a push for “MLS to Detroit” from a couple billionaires. I doubt strongly they are going to actually move DCFC either because they want total branding control or because the owners will stick to their guns before selling out. Or really – both those things.

So that means a tier three DCFC potentially up against a tier one MLS team. Can Detroit support both?

I say “maybe leaning on yes?”

I still don’t think MLS will really come. I think that when Gilbert/Gores don’t get their stadium land, it’ll mostly fall through. And Gores’ recent(-ish) comment on not even wanting another team probably doesn’t sit well with Garber, who will want strong, united owners.

Moreover Garber probably wants to avoid adding a second Miami FC to the mix – with MLS Miami still looking for land on which to build a stadium, the last thing they need is two teams sitting around waiting for property. Or to finally get Miami into the queue only to refill the waiting spot.

I think Garber will aim for “easy” expansion (his comments about St. Louis reflect this) and no messy, political ones.

I think, in the end, Detroit City is moving to tier three and the city is going to remain a one-team-town.

So? Who are the other nine? Here are the ten teams I think will inaugurate Peter Wilt’s NISA (based on twitter rumor, speculation, and bullshit alone):

  1. Detroit City FC
  2. AFC Cleveland
  3. Chattanooga FC
  4. FC Buffalo
  5. A Chicago-based team
  6. An NYC-based team
  7. A Florida-based team
  8. A Mid-Atlantic-based team
  9. A Deep South-based team
  10. A Missouri-based team

Sorry that lacks any form of specificity. Cheers, everyone.

Detroit City FC, Flags, Symbols, and Crests, Kits, Soccer

Detroit City 2017 Kit Guess

I’ve been getting a lot of work done on my fake world cup stuff, but recently Detroit City FC announced their 2017 charity match and charity: the Kalamazoo match 23. June will benefit Alternatives for Girls, a Detroit-based charity that helps homeless and at-risk girls and women in the city.

What a great group to be helping, and honestly what amazing possibilities for some awesome charity kits, right?

Right.

Listen, I designed more kits and I’m about to shove them down your eyeholes.

Anyway, I decided to guess what the 2017 Detroit City kits are going to look like. I have a bit of an advantage because I’ve possibly been tipped off to what they aren’t but there are still a lot of unknowns. First is the possibility of a fourth set of kits hinted at debuting at the Glentoran match as throw-backs to the Detroit Cougars.

But, as a few of us agreed, there is the likely chance that there will still be only three sets – home, throw-back, and charity. I think this is what we will end up seeing. It keeps with tradition and doesn’t saturate the market with unwanted kits.

So let’s start with that throw-back. This isn’t terribly hard, we already have a raging clue: Glentoran already unveiled their Cougar throw-back kits and they are white plus orange. From there it is easy to deduce that ours will be black and orange. Here it is folks, our first non-white secondary kits. That’s pretty exciting. But what will they look like? Maybe something like this:

Simple black kits with orange trim/cuffing. Arm space is almost always reserved for the league and sponsors so I’ve put the Cougar’s logo on the pant leg.

It would be strange seeing orange on our kits, of all things, but I assume that as throw-backs they’ll be in for a season and out. Hopefully, though, the black stays and next season we can have some black on black on black kits.

So we got a black and orange kit… what next? How about a pink and black charity kit!

Our charity, Alternatives for Girls takes over on the chest of a stunning hot pink and black combination. I love, love, the idea of pink/black kits for Detroit City. If we do end up getting them, they will surely be hard to beat in the future.

Definitely check out the Alternatives for Girls site and give them a follow/like on your favorite social media site. Very excited to bring them into the DCFC family.

“That’s all fine and dandy,” you might be thinking. “But there’s only one kit I care about” and you’d not be wrong.

I don’t think you’re right, but you’re not wrong what with opinions and subjectivity and all, but you do you. I love secondary and alternate kits a lot as an expression of creativity. Home kits should be consistent, the others should shake it up from time to time a place to test what works and what doesn’t. To throw metaphoric shit against the wall and see what sticks.

Anyway, the home kits:

Rouge. Lots and lots of rouge. And a little bit of white. It’s very similar to a design I posted a while ago, but I’ve added the collar so the home kit isn’t just a ctrl+c, ctrl+v of last year’s, which admittedly was very simple.

Anyway, that wraps up this “surprise” update. Hope you guys enjoyed and feel free to let me know what you think… or, alternatively if you are a kit manufacturer hire me.

Cheers, everyone.